As the use of plastic cards for credit cards, automated teller machine (ATM) cards, identification cards, and like continues to become more widespread, the problems associated with the use of such cards correspondingly increase. Credit card fraud and identification card fraud are becoming larger problems everyday, and this fraud has introduced uncertainties into our systems of commerce and our security systems. Using easily available technology, criminals are able to manufacture credit/debit cards, ATM cards, identification cards, and the like having another's account code, identification code, or other personal information embedded in the magnetic stripe thereof. Thus, for example, criminals may steal hundreds or thousands of legitimate credit card account numbers and manufacture many additional cards bearing the stolen information. These fraudulent cards are then usable by the criminals to purchase goods and to receive cash with the legitimate card holder and the card issuer left holding the bill.
Likewise, so called debit cards are becoming increasingly popular. These cards have stored thereon a certain amount of value for which the card owner has previously paid. For example, a subway rider may purchase a card good for X fares, with one fare being deducted from the card each time the owner rides the subway. Criminals have also been able to manipulate the data stored on these cards to defraud the merchants and others.
The ease in which criminals have been able to manufacture and or manipulate known cards results from the existence of the easily altered magnetic stripe storage medium used by known cards. These magnetic stripes are easily programmed and reprogrammed using commonly available technology. Thus, there has been found a need in the plastic card industry to provide a more secure plastic card that is very difficult or impossible to fraudulently manipulate.
The likely successor to magnetic stripe cards is known as a memory or smart card. A smart card can generally be described as a card having an integrated circuit with memory that is capable of making decisions. The category of smart cards can be further divided into subcategories based on the type of memory or type of communication with an associated card reader. Types of smart cards include contact cards (cards requiring physical touch between the terminal reader and the surface of the card) and contactless cards (cards which interact with the terminal reader using a electromagnetic coupling). Contactless cards may also be referred to as "proximity" cards. This technology may serve as a substitute for or be provided as an addition to the magnetic stripe on a card.
One specific type of smart card is a dual function contact/contactless microprocessor chip plastic card commonly referred to in the industry as a dual function card. This card utilizes a single micropressor to control both physical contact and proximity features of the card.
While these smart cards have been found to have infinitely more capability than magnetic stripe cards as well as being more successful in preventing or limiting fraud, they are more difficult and expensive to manufacture relative to ordinary magnetic stripe cards. One of the biggest obstacles to the wide spread manufacture and use of smart cards has been the inability of card manufacturers to manufacturer a smart card that meets all industry standards and specifications, such as those set by the International Standards Organization (ISO), that are sufficiently aesthetically pleasing (wherein the embedded electronics are hidden from view), and that have a sufficiently regular or flat surface such that one or both surfaces of the card may be printed on using the very popular and widespread dye sublimation technology.
Limitations to known plastic cards with embedded computer chips and electronics are that they a) are too thick to work in connection with existing card reading machinery (ATM machines, telephones, b) have a surface that is too irregular to properly and consistently receive dye sublimation printing, c) utilize manufacturing processes making the cards cost prohibitive. Moreover, prior attempts to manufacture a sufficiently thin plastic card including a computer chip embedded therein have resulted in a card with inferior aesthetic qualities such as the ability to see the embedded computer chip through the plastic.
Furthermore, due to the presence of both internal and surface electronics within the card, the manufacture of a dual function card presents its own unique set of obstacles and problems, different from the manufacture of cards with fully embedded electronics.